Keywords

Authors

Olsen, Douglas P. RN, PhD

Abstract

The article describes a cognitive structural theory of how nurses conceive or understand the personhood of patients. The theory postulates three levels that have the properties of cognitive structures. The third and highest level is held to be a meta-ethical theory of the moral structure of care. For nurses operating with level-III understanding, critiques of justice and care-based ethics are further held to be synthesized within.